Thursday Wordcount

[rj_anderson]

I rock. How much do I rock?

1,185 words.

And those are just the new ones -- that isn't counting all the bits I rewrote and added in to the earlier part of the chapter. I'd say that would count for at least another 300 words or so. I also got some administrative stuff done, which made me feel extra-productive.

Unfortunately, I got so wrapped up in what I was doing, I completely missed my afternoon hair appointment and had to reschedule. Oops.

Comments

yay YOU!

[becominghuman.livejournal.com]

you rock! :-) good work!

W

[olmue.livejournal.com]

Yay! That's great progress!

I know this one's under contract--is it a sequel, or are you fleshing out a fast draft book, or is this writing from total scratch, or what?

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

This is the sequel to Knife, but set 10-11 years afterward, with different lead characters. It wraps up some loose ends from Book I, but the plot is fairly self-contained, so it's more like writing an entirely new story.

For Wayfarer I wrote the first chapter and a seven-page synopsis of the rest of the book, which we sent out along with the full ms. of Knife, and which HarperCollins liked enough to give me a two-book contract. But apart from that big-picture outline, I'm writing as I've always done -- feeling my way ahead one scene at a time.

[olmue.livejournal.com]

Ack! So, nothing like a little pressure now, huh? No wonder you're feeling tempted by Touching Indigo, if you've got that much more done on it...

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Well, apparently I have until Sept. 2009 to turn in Wayfarer, which is quite a decent amount of time even given that I'll be revising Knife off and on until Sept. 2008. So the possibility of working on Indigo during that time is still there...

My Fast Draft of Indigo is pretty much useless to me, though -- yes, truly, all 50,000+ words of it. One of these days I'll have to write a post explaining why, but the upshot is that I'm no further ahead than I would have been if I'd stuck to my usual writing method.

[olmue.livejournal.com]

But the three chapters I critted (you did get that, right?) are the part you ARE keeping, right? Right?? Because those were excellent.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

I did indeed get your crit -- so sorry not to have acknowledged it before! It was very encouraging indeed, and I appreciate it.

And yes, I am definitely keeping those chapters!

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I should mention that those three chapters you liked were written without reference to the fast-drafted stuff -- they were composed using my normal slowpoke methods, and I didn't even look at the earlier draft as I was writing them. So it really is true that Fast Drafting the book did nothing for me, or at least nothing that I've yet been able to salvage...

[olmue.livejournal.com]

Well, now I can not feel guilty for not trying Fast Drafting! And your normal way seems to produce pretty spectacular results, so um, I think I'd recommend keeping it up!

[timeheldinsepia.livejournal.com]

You most definitely rock!

[tamarak.livejournal.com]

You rock so much you missed a hair appointment? That's SERIOUS rockness.

[sunsethill.livejournal.com]

Yes, weren't you just worrying about the fact that you just weren't "getting into" writing as much anymore? And here you go and forget a hair appointment. ;-) It sounds like the old magic is still there, just muted a little by age and responsibilities.

[sarah-prineas.livejournal.com]

The heck with the hair. That's some awesome word count!!!